By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, July 14, 2006; C01

PASADENA, Calif., July 13

Viacom suits want to promote the upcoming DVD of the creators' favorite 10 episodes to coincide with the 10th anniversary of "South Park." Viacom wants to make sure it sells like gangbusters.

So Viacom's Comedy Central cable network schedules "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to plug the 10th anniversary and DVD before a couple hundred TV critics and reporters at Summer TV Press Tour 2006 here on Thursday.

Only, Stone and Parker are still angry that Comedy Central in May yanked a repeat of the "Trapped in the Closet" episode lampooning Scientology and its most famous member, Tom Cruise.

At the time they were told it was being pulled because suits at Viacom, which also owns Paramount, thought it could turn people off Cruise and his upcoming Paramount flick "Mission: Impossible 3." (Turns out Tom was quite capable of doing that all by himself without Matt and Trey's help.)

Fortunately, what with "M:I3" come and gone, the episode is no longer such a corporate issue. So, the day before Stone and Parker appear at the press tour, Viacom announces through trade paper Variety that Comedy Central finally will rerun the "Trapped" episode next week.

Quel coincidence! And no, there is no way to be too cynical when covering the super-vertically-integrated entertainment industry.

"First of all, we can't take any questions about Tom Cruise or Scientology or 'South Park,' " Stone cracked right off the bat at the Q&A.

"How much did you wrestle with the Scientology episode?" was the first question.

"Since that pertains to 'South Park' we can't answer," Stone responded.

Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox, who was also up on stage, told the reporters the episode was pulled so that they could instead air an episode paying tribute to Chef, played by Isaac Hayes.

(Hayes, who is a Scientologist, quit the show on which he had not been much of a presence the past five years, in May. He said he was quitting because Matt and Trey were disrespectful of religion and spirituality. Did I mention that the episode had already aired multiple times?)

"That's our story and we're sticking with it," Fox said -- a sort of "we all know what's really going on here" wink -- after tossing that mountain of horseradish all over the reporters in the room.

"Nicely done," Matt or Trey sneered from his seat onstage. The two applauded Fox; the reporters giggled.

Stone said they dodged the news media back in May when the "Trapped" episode was scrubbed because "you didn't want to be in a headline with him and start getting that Tom Cruise stink on you," even though they were on the other side of the argument.

Then, he said, when the network asked them to decide which episode they'd like to submit for Emmy consideration this year, they chose that episode only.

"We just did it to be [male prides], really," Stone said.

As it turns out, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences liked the idea, and the episode is among this year's animated series nominees.

Parker said they're not that surprised. "You can't pick anything where people are more on your side. This entire city, except Scientology, were like 'Yeah! Go get em!' "

"It's that Tom Cruise stink," Stone added.

Afterward, Comedy Central chief Doug Herzog told The TV Column that the episode was pulled to pay tribute to Chef and that it's running now because "it's its time." He added something about the normal cycle-through of episodes, and that "we reserve the right to air them when and where we see fit." Very scary corporate stuff.

Stone and Parker also admitted they were stunned when, right around the same time, Comedy Central refused to let them show an image of Muhammad in an episode lampooning the so-called "cartoon wars" -- the violence that broke out in Europe and several Muslim countries over Danish cartoons that protesters said were blasphemous because they depicted the prophet.

Stone and Parker were particularly surprised since, a few years earlier, the network had run an episode in which Muhammad was portrayed as a superhero who could turn himself into a beaver.

In the newer episode, instead of Muhammad's image, viewers saw a black screen with the words "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network."

At the time the network said, "In light of recent world events we feel we made the right decision."

"A new taboo was created out of nothing," Parker said Thursday.

During the Q&A, Herzog told the TV critics that it had been a tough situation and a "judgment made on behalf of a big media company" and that "history might show we overreacted and we're willing to live with that." Then he noted that the image of Muhammad was there -- "it's underneath the black screen."

No kidding -- he really did. He added, "We're looking forward to the day when we can uncover it."

Stone noted that last month Harper's magazine ran the Danish cartoons and nothing bad happened.

After the Q&A, Herzog insisted there was "a difference between a journalistic endeavor" and the satire of "South Park."

But, the "South Park" creators noted, Harper's had asked for the censored frame of Muhammad from "South Park" to include in its "journalistic endeavor."

Comedy Central wouldn't let the magazine have it, they said.